The week between Christmas and the New Year is usually a slow news period,
particularly on the political front. Governments try not to put out
initiatives during this period perhaps because they deem their citizens
too preoccupied with having fun, or more likely, ministers themselves are
on holiday. At home, there's nothing coming out of our own government
except bland holiday greetings from the Prime Minister's Office.

Expecting a slow period, I have saved up
some political news for Yawning Bread from earlier in December.
Admittedly, they are not earth-shaking events, nor are they even
Singapore-related -- they're from America -- but in the spirit of
Christmas, they are news bits generated by the religious right's wingnuts.

* * * * *

We all know James Dobson, don't we? He
gets a small paid advertisement daily in 'Today' newspaper, meant to
elevate his image as some sort of guru on family relationships. Dobson
(left) heads the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, a fundamentalist Christian
organisation that goes around destroying families that happen to have gay
members. It does this by telling parents that their gay sons and
daughters are sinners, or by telling gay boys and girls to hate
themselves. The resulting tension in personal relationships is so
destructive, some vulnerable teens run away from home or commit suicide.

Earlier this month when Mary Cheney, the
daughter of the US Vice-President, announced that she was expecting a
child with her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, Time magazine invited
James Dobson to comment. Somehow that invitation grew into a guest column
in the US edition of the magazine.[1]

Rather than adopt a condemnatory tack --
it wouldn't do because Dobson couldn't afford to antagonise Dick Cheney
and the Republican Party -- Dobson couched his position in terms of
"concern". He was "concerned" that Mary Cheney was being
irresponsible by bringing a child into this world without a father and
that the child's growth would be compromised.

Dobson claimed that "the majority of
more than 30 years of social-science evidence indicates that children do
best on every measure of well-being when raised by their married mother
and father."

To back up his argument, Dobson cited 2
highly-respected researchers in the field of child psychology.

"The unique value of fathers,"
wrote Dobson, "has been explained by Dr. Kyle Pruett of Yale Medical
School in his book Fatherneed: Why Father Care Is as Essential as Mother
Care for Your Child. Pruett says dads are critically important simply
because 'fathers do not mother.' "

To round off his essay, he said,
"Traditional marriage is God's design for the family and is rooted in
biblical truth. When that divine plan is implemented, children have the
best opportunity to thrive." (See box).

Then a funny thing happened. Both
scientists, Pruett, professor at New York University School of Medicine,
and Gilligan, who had previously taught at Harvard and Cambridge, objected
to Dobson trying to cite them.

Absolute rubbish, of course. I've said it many
times before: so-called traditional marriage is a very recent
invention, not more than 200 years old, and for millennia,
including today, children have
thrived in all sorts of cultures, with all sorts of family
structures... so long as there's been love and care.

"You cherry-picked a
phrase to shore up highly, in my view, discriminatory purposes,"
Pruett told Dobson in a letter. "This practice is condemned in real
science, common though it may be in pseudo-science circles. There is
nothing in my longitudinal research or any of my writings to support such
conclusions (about same-gender families)."

Gilligan was "mortified". She
sent him an email demanding that he "cease and desist from quoting my
research in the future."

"Not only did you take my research
out of context, you did so without my knowledge to support discriminatory
goals that I do not agree with," she said in her letter. "What
you wrote was not truthful and I ask that you refrain from ever quoting me
again and that you apologize for twisting my work."

There is nothing new in Dobson's attempt
to put scientific gloss on his religiously-motivated claims. As noted by
Wayne Besen on the website of his organisation Truth
Wins Out[2], the very same week that the
Time magazine issue broke, Angela Phillips, author of The Trouble With
Boys and professor at Goldsmiths College in London, said she was
"incensed" to find she was misquoted in another Dobson article.

In June this year, Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc,
an associate professor at the University of British Columbia, said Focus
on the Family twisted her study on lesbian teen suicide. "The
research has been hijacked for somebodyís political purposes or
ideological purposes and thatís worrisome," Saewyc told CBC news.

And as noted in an earlier article in
Yawning Bread, Robert Spitzer, another noted psychologist, has also been
upset that Focus on the Family often cited his work in misleading
ways. [3]

Faced with stark evidence
that Dobson's guest column was way below journalistic standards of
integrity -- never mind Christian exhortations to be truthful -- Time
magazine invited Jennifer Chrisler to write a
counter-essay [4]. Chrisler is the Executive Director
of Family Pride, the largest LGBT family advocacy group in the US, and the
mother of twin boys with her wife Cheryl Jacques. You'll see an except of
the essay in the box on the right, where Chrisler addresses the claim that
30 years' of research has shown that children "do best" with
heterosexual parents.

"It is true that there is 30 years
of research," Chrisler wrote, but it showed the opposite of what
Dobson claimed. "The fact is that research findings on these issues
overwhelmingly testify to the success of gay families as nurturing
environments for children's growth and development." [5]

Well then, what kind of Christian
organisation is this that wallows in such dishonesty?

* * * * *

One of the "firsts" that came out of the US midterm elections
last November was the victory of a Muslim candidate for the House of
Representatives. Keith Ellison, a Democrat from Minnesota, will take his
seat in January 2007.

On
28 November 2006, a radio show host and syndicated columnist, Dennis
Prager (right) vented his spleen at the prospect of Ellison taking his oath of
office upon the Koran. "He should not be allowed to do so," said
Prager, "because the act undermines American civilization."

How?

"Insofar as a member of Congress
taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned,
America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of
taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress."

In a nutshell, Prager told Ellison,
"America, not you, decides on what book its public servants take
their oath."

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) took
issue with Prager's stand, calling his views "intolerant" and
"ugly". In its public statement, the ADL pointed out that,

... the U.S. Constitution guarantees
that, "no religious test shall ever be required" to hold
public office in America. Members of Congress, like all Americans,
should be free to observe their own religious practices without
government interference or coercion.

Pragerís patriotic prattling is
misinformed on the facts, too. No Member of Congress is officially sworn
in with a Bible. Under House rules, the official swearing-in ceremony is
done in the House chambers, with the Speaker of the House administering
the oath of office en masse. No Bibles or other holy books are used at
all. Members may, if they choose, also have a private ceremony with
family and friends. At these unofficial ceremonies, Members frequently
solemnize the event by taking an oath while holding a personal family
Bible.

I shall, however go back to quoting
Prager. The ADL's statement is too sober; it isn't as much fun as Prager's
words.

"Ellison's doing so will embolden
Islamic extremists and make new ones," Prager continued, "as
Islamists, rightly or wrongly, see the first sign of the realization of
their greatest goal -- the Islamicization of America. "

He demanded Christian conformity:
"When all elected officials take their oaths of office with their
hands on the very same book, they all affirm that some unifying value
system underlies American civilization."

Then invoked the Al-Qaeda attacks on New
York: "If Keith Ellison is allowed to change that, he will be doing
more damage to the unity of America and to the value system that has
formed this country than the terrorists of 9-11."

My word! Such catastrophe from having the
Koran at an unofficial ceremony.

It may amaze you, but Prager is not
Christian; rather, he's an Orthodox Jew. However, his political views are
based on seeing America as the safekeeper of (what he believes are
morally-superior) Judeo-Christian values, an exceptional country meant by
his god Yahweh/Jehovah to fight off everybody else. Thus, he sees a clash
of civilisations upon the slightest pretext.

He and others like him imagine themselves
besieged by people of other religions, atheists, secular humanists,
scientists, feminists, gays, Asians, Africans, communists, socialists,
gun-control proponents...

Before we laugh too loudly at the madness
that erupts from fevered minds of rightwing America, Singaporeans should
also know that such people can be found here too. There is a branch of
Focus on the Family here. We have charismatic mega churches here. We have
pastors (and letter-writers to the Straits Times) who also play fast and
loose with science and who declare to their congregations their intention
to change Singapore from a secular state and a
multi-religious society into "a nation of righteous Christians".
[6]

As a popular hymn goes,

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as
to war,
with the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
forward into battle see his banners go!

It is true that there is 30 years of research
about families headed by lesbian and gay parents. However,
Dobson claims that the resulting data shows that "children
do best on every measure of well-being when raised by their
married mother and father." To say that Dobson is
misinformed here would be inaccurate. He is simply lying. The
people who are misinformed by these untruths are the readers of
his material and those who publish his work without
appropriately verifying his assertions. The fact is that
research findings on these issues overwhelmingly testify to the
success of gay families as nurturing environments for children's
growth and development.

In terms of specific examples, Dr. Nanette Gartrell, former
Harvard Medical School faculty and current Associate Clinical
Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San
Francisco, has conducted research on lesbian-headed families
since the early 1980s. Gartrell's findings have proven that
"in social and psychological development, the children [of
lesbian parents] were comparable to children raised in
heterosexual families." In addition, Dr. Charlotte
Patterson, Professor of Psychology as the University of Virginia
and respected family and child researcher, has determined that
"there is no evidence that the development of children with
lesbian or gay parents is compromised in any significant respect
relative to that among children of heterosexual parents in
otherwise comparable circumstances."

In addition, professional organizations such as the American
Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association and
the National Association of Social Workers have all issued
position statements supporting same-sex parents. The Child
Welfare League of America says, "It should be recognized
that sexual orientation and the capacity to nurture a child are
separate issues." The American Psychological Association
goes even further "Not a single study has found children to
be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children
of heterosexual parents. Indeed, the evidence to date suggests
that home environments provided by gay and lesbian parents are
as likely as those provided by heterosexual parents to support
and enable children's psycho-social growth. Gay and lesbian
parents are as likely as heterosexual parents to provide healthy
and supportive environments for their children."